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Daily industrial news and top headlines for plant and maintenance managers

CLINTON, Conn. (AP) — Unilever, which makes household products such as Dove soaps, Lipton tea and Ben & Jerry's ice cream, is shutting a Connecticut plant and laying off nearly 200 workers.
WTNH-TV reported Thursday that the company said it will shut its Clinton plant by the end of next year and lay off 49 salaried workers and 135 hourly employees.

READING, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania company that makes brass hardware is closing its doors after more than 50 years.
About 160 people will lose their jobs with the closure of the Baldwin Hardware plant by the end of next year.
Stanley Black & Decker has owned the Baldwin Hardware brand since 2003.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — American Airlines said Friday that it will finance up to 35 new planes in the next three years under a sale-leaseback deal with aircraft-leasing company AerCap Holdings N.V.
American had already ordered 26 of the Boeing 737 aircraft. The airline disclosed Friday that it exercised an option to buy three more, and the AerCap deal also covered six planes to which American holds purchase rights.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. auto factories produced fewer goods in June than the previous month, and overall factory production was flat. It marked the third straight month of weak output slowed by supply chain disruptions caused by the Japan crisis.
The Federal Reserve reported Friday that factory production was unchanged last month following a tiny 0.

Deacom Inc. recently announced that D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc., America’s oldest brewery, has licensed its DEACOM enterprise resource planning (ERP) software system to integrate its three facilities, with functionality including accounting, sales order management, regulatory reporting, purchasing, production scheduling, inventory, order entry and retail point of sale.

It seems more and more emphasis continues to be placed on eating healthy, especially with the ongoing media coverage of the nation’s obesity problem. Government agencies and task forces have stepped up efforts to shrink Americans’ growing waistlines, highlighted by programs such as the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the new
MyPlate initiative.

Automated driving systems such as adaptive cruise control may be the latest ''must have'' gizmos, but the auto industry is already looking to their successor, cooperative driving, where cars communicate with each other as they go. The technology is in its early stages but this past weekend, researchers drove to Holland to see if their cars would interact.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. reached a deal to buy Continental Alloys & Services Inc. and some affiliated companies for an undisclosed sum, the company said Thursday.
Continental, based in Houston, is a materials management company focused on steel and alloy pipe, tube and bar products, along with the manufacturing of various tools designed for energy service companies.

OKEMAH, Okla. (AP) — Wellhead gas compression equipment manufacturer Sertco Industries Inc. says it's expanding its operations in Okemah and plans to add 15 new workers by the end of the year.
The company says it's working with the city of Okemah on the $2.25 million expansion, which will add 12,100 square feet of assembly space, 3,600 square feet of office space and 2,000 square feet of paint booth space.

RIDGELAND, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is officially welcoming a company to Jasper County that plans to create at least 175 jobs.
Haley is scheduled to attend a welcoming ceremony Thursday afternoon for Be Green Packaging. The California-based packaging company announced in April that it plans to open a manufacturing and distribution center in Ridgeland next year.

GALLATIN, Tenn. (AP) — A third employee of a Middle Tennessee metal powders plant has died, following a May fire at the facility
Fred Tuttle died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center on Thursday evening, according to WTVF-TV, which quoted a hospital spokesperson.
Tuttle was one of five people who were injured — three of them critically — in a May 27 fire at the Hoeganaes (HAY'-gan-ehz) plant in Gallatin.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A mixed slate of reports Thursday showed the U.S. economy is being held back by high gas prices and sluggish hiring.
Economists are forecasting a pick-up in growth in the second half of the year. But the latest data revealed only faint signs of a turnaround.
The Commerce Department said retail sales ticked up only 0.

LAWTON, Okla. (AP) — Lawton police and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating a deadly accident at a Bar S Foods plant.
Authorities received an emergency call late Tuesday that an employee was trapped in machinery.
Bar S officials say Michael Raper was cleaning an auger when he fell into it.

Fluke Corporation (Everett, WA) has introduced the Fluke 381 Remote Display True-rms AC/DC Clamp Meter with iFlex, designed to meet every requirement for testing and maintaining electrical systems. The Fluke 381 is a full-featured clamp meter with a detachable wireless display for flexibility and safety.

Meltric Corporation (Franklin, WI) has presented a new product line for electrical equipment powered by direct currents. Meltric’s DSDC Series plugs and receptacles can provide safer connections for direct current applications up to 200 amps at 250VDC, up to 100 amps at 600 VDC, or up to 30 amps at 750 VDC.

The ec-H20 technology from Tennant (Minneapolis, MN) electrically converts water into a cleaning solution for most cleaning applications. The water is first passed through electrified screens in the oxygenating chamber, creating an energetic solution made of highly oxygenated micro-bubbles.

Hydrovane (Redditch, Worcestershire, UK) has announced its new Hydrovane V Series line of rotary vane compressors. Small, quiet, and affordable, Hydrovane compressors are all direct drive with no belts or gears to maintain. They operate at 1760 RPM’s for low stress, noise, and long compressor life.

Audi and MIT's SENSEable City Lab have teamed up to design the car navigation system of the future--a 3D display that will sit on the dashboard. According to the design team, the new system will be programed to filter real time information allowing drivers to better navigate around a city.
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VALLEY FORGE, PA -- The financial readiness of Americans for retirement has been a focus of attention in the last few years, particularly after the severe stock market downturn of 2008-2009. A new report shows that employees of larger manufacturing companies who participated in their 401(k) or other defined contribution (DC) plan at Vanguard in 2010 tended to have higher account balances than their counterparts in smaller manufacturing company plans and Vanguard plans as a whole.